There is an adage about people hating those who are so much like them because they cannot stand being reminded of their own failings. Think of a rooster that sees a mirror image of itself, raises its hackles and wants to fight it. Being the world's largest carbon emitters aside, nowhere is this adage tragically truer than with the US and China in the matter of harming schoolchildren. While assorted American crazies like that Batman fanboy have topped global attention for years and years, unbeknownst to many, China has been giving the US a run for its money.
As it so happens, a Chinese nutter also tried to harm schoolchildren a few hours before the Newtown incident. However, he was fortunately not armed with a gun. The fact remains though that the frequency of attacks on kids is on the rise in China. "Asian values" notwithstanding; perhaps there's been a rise instead in "American values"?
As it so happens, a Chinese nutter also tried to harm schoolchildren a few hours before the Newtown incident. However, he was fortunately not armed with a gun. The fact remains though that the frequency of attacks on kids is on the rise in China. "Asian values" notwithstanding; perhaps there's been a rise instead in "American values"?
The children of Chengping were still filtering into the local elementary school on Friday morning, China time, when a deranged thirty-six-year-old man named Min Yingjun entered the campus. He carried a knife. (China bans private gun ownership.) By the time the security guards got to him, he had wounded twenty-two children and one adult. All survived. China, like most places, had seen this kind of madness before: one especially heavy string of school attacks in 2010 killed nearly twenty people and wounded more than fifty. The killers are as hard to recall in their particulars as they deserve.